All Children Have A Right As Citizens To Flourish

CPAG
supports all endeavours to alleviate child poverty. It is
admirable that charities like Variety and others step up to
provide a practical response when they see children in need.
This shows the caring and compassion of our community and
there is certainly a place for emergency charity
assistance.

However the key question for us as a society
is to provide sustainable opportunities and resources for
all children. All children have a right as citizens to
flourish.

It is important that when charities offer
‘bandages’ and emergency help, they are not used to
cover up cracks in our society that reflect systemic
problems in a failure to support our children.

To make
real progress New Zealand MUST address the systemic causes
of child poverty, especially those that arise from New
Zealand’s unfair and illogical tax-funded family
assistance.

John Key said in Parliamentary Question Time,
30th January, that it is ‘his preference’ that children
in working families should not have to rely on charity.
“That is why the Government has supported Working for
Families and supports the In-Work Tax Credit,” he
said.

This is a clear admission of the In-Work Tax
Credit’s role and purpose in alleviating child poverty.
CPAG believes it is deeply unfair that only some poor
children benefit from this support while children of
beneficiary parents miss out. For example, when low income
families are made redundant or lose work in an event like an
earthquake, they lose entitlement to at least $60 week of
family assistance for their children.

Economics
spokesperson Susan St John said, “The children’s charity
Variety is showing that $35 a month can make a huge
difference for an individual child. Imagine the difference
$240 a month would make for a family.”

It has also
been reported that Variety is supporting one child by
providing medicine for an ongoing skin condition.

CPAG
Health Spokesperson GP Dr Nikki Turner said, “We are very
concerned this child’s family is having difficulty
accessing medicine. We know from Ministry of Social
Development data that families in poverty at times have to
delay, or don’t pick up scripts, because of the costs.
From 1 January this year the Government put the cost of a
script up from $3 to $5 an item which has exacerbated the
problem. Policy decisions exacerbate poverty-related issues
for children.”

Ms Turner said, “In my own GP
practice I have seen patients who want fewer items now it
costs $5 for each script. With a High User card, after 20
items the scripts become free but that is a long way off
when you have limited spare cash and health issues arise
unexpectedly. This is a very sad example of the compassion
from private charities having to cover for poorly thought
out
policy.”

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